John Groess

The Benilde-St. Margarets Ultimate Frisbee team is a great way to stay active and play with friends.

Ultimate frisbee is a BSM sport coached by Math teacher John Groess and science teacher Chuck Dudek. Ultimate frisbee is a sport similar to football and soccer, where students pass a frisbee across a field so that they can get it to the endzone. Since Ultimate Frisbee began at BSM around 2010, the team has grown substantially, with a boys and girls team with a total of about 30 players.

The BSM ultimate frisbee team has been competing against over 100 divisions of teams in Minnesota. The sport is a team of seven players passing the frisbee to one another as they try to get it down a 70-yard field. On either side of the field is a 25-yard end zone where the players score. “You pass it down the field and try to catch it in the end zone… So it’s continuous play, like soccer, but it’s like football in that you’re catching a Frisbee in the end zone… We compete against other schools… There are about 45 girls’ teams that we play against in our state Division. There’s something like 100 boys and girls teams combined in Minnesota,” Groess said.

Ultimate frisbee has many benefits for its participants. It is a great way to build coordination with others and work as a team, and it helps students get a workout in while also being engaging and fun. It also allows students to try new things and meet new people, and make more friends throughout the season, with a lot more people joining over time. “It’s really fun, and then you get to be active with your friends. I think the other thing that’s just nice is getting to try something new, especially in high school. I think it’s really important to try new things and to have good experiences with those and being with friends,” Groess said.

Many of the players on the boys’ team joined ultimate frisbee so that they could play with their friends and work together to win more games in the season. The boys’ team won 2nd place in division 3 at state during the Ultimate Frisbee season of 2024, and they are always looking for more players to add to their team. “We got second in division three at state, so pretty decent, okay, but we’re looking to improve this year… You know, it’s more about the people and just having a good time on a Thursday night under the lights,” alumni Ryan Kinney said.